At Genesis House, society's throwaway women get a fresh chance

Every time Vanessa Moody found out she was pregnant--and she found out five times in six years--she wanted to do right by her baby. So she told her tricks she'd give them oral sex only. "I really hoped nobody would have rough sex with me that would hurt the baby," she says. That sort of logic kept Moody working the mean streets and alleys of Chicago's South Side for 13 years.

It's hardly a revelation that busy prostitutes wind up pregnant from time to time. Some even find that impending motherhood is the wake-up call that spurs them to straighten out...